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features of the countenance, and the constant workings of 88
this ¢ mirror of the soul’ alone revealed the restless spirit Zr. 32.
of Mehemet Ali. I never beheld a more unguiet eye than
hig, as it glided from one to another of the persons around
him; it was incessantly in motion. Its glance, however,
had none of that overpowering character which beams only
from the soul of real genius;—there was neither moral nor
intellectual grandeur in the look of the person before me,
and I could not help thinking, as he stole furtive glances
first at us and next at the door, that that eye might have
been employed in watching the store of his gquondam
tobacco shop from the pilfering hands of his Albanian connbrymen,
 with greater appropriateness than in now looking
down upon us from the divan of a pacha.’
“ Altogether there was as little dignity as possibly can be
conceived in the personal appearance of Mehemet. Were 1
to confess what were the feelings which predominated in my
mind as I regarded him whilst he sat, or rather perched,
upright on the middle of the divan, without resting or
reclining upon its pillows, and with his legs tucked beneath
him, so as to leave only his slippers peeping out from each
gide of his copious nether garments, they certainly partook
largely of the ridiculous.
“Coffee was brought to us in little cups enclosed in
covers of filagree-work made of silver, and which I was
afterwards told by one of the party (I did not myself notice
them) was richly set with diamonds.
“When the first civilities had passed, the Pacha, as if
impatient of unmeaning puerilities, took up the conversation
with an harangue of considerable length, which he delivered
with great animation. I felt curious to know what was the
* Mehemet Ali, the founder of the present system of government in Egypt,
was born in 1768 at a small town on the Albanian coast, of an obscure
family, For some years he dealt in tobacco, and he was thirty years eid or
mors before hie effectively beprun hig military career.